Randi Weingarten and Linda Darling-Hammond have co-authored a major new statement on accountability.
They write that:
“If we assume that the goal of accountability should be better education, the test-and-punish approach must be replaced by a support-and-improve model. A new approach should ensure that students get what they really need: 1) curriculum, teaching, and assessment focused on meaningful learning, 2) adequate resources that are spent wisely, and 3) professional capacity, so that teachers and school leaders develop the knowledge and skills they need to teach much more challenging content in much more effective ways.”
They add:
“Implementing the standards well will not be accomplished by targets and sanctions. It will require more adequate and equitable resources and greater investments in professional capacity, especially for currently underfunded schools that serve the highest-need students.
“Raising standards in ways that punish children and educators for not meeting them produces the wrong responses from schools. Evidence shows that, rather than improve learning, sanctions tend to tamp down innovation, incentivize schools to boost scores by keeping or driving out struggling students, hasten the flight of thoughtful educators from the profession, and disrupt learning for students whose local schools are shut down.”
They use Néw York as an example of how do accountability wrong, and California as an example of how to do it right.
There are some very good ideas in their statement. I would add my two cents: when some children and families live in such desperate circunstance, not even the best standards, curriculum, assessments, and professional development will be enough to create equality of opportunity. Some kids have tooany strikes against them, and that is a societal failure.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There should be a co-accountability model that holds policy makers responsible for affordable college and living-wage paying careers waiting on the back end of the edu-factories they are creating.
accountability is for the children of the proles.
they get accountability. Vichy collaborators with the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth get fat paychecks.
Why would public education agree to be “held accountable” to any corporate business plan, under any model?
These women are both selling teachers’ integrity, which is not theirs to sell.
I have to say that the more I read this letter of theirs, the more it bothers me. I agree with you, chemtchr. Their words/thoughts are as out of touch with the real life classroom as those of the “reformers”. Discouraging for me, as a teacher.
But the current goal of accountability is blame.
Let’s just end the sentence with, “Implementing the standards well will not be accomplished.”
These “standards” were created under shandy circumstances. The problem begins with CCSS origin.
Pearson wants implementation; Gates wants implementation. Both are well represented in this “new statement.”
Exactly right. The whole model is flawed by imposing itself from the top down and from the outside one single standard as if there is one standard student. And Diane’s point about child poverty being the first and largest obstacle to address, is totally missing from this flawed attempt to repackage CCSS.
“as if there is one standard student”
There are thousands of good pedagogical reasons to scrap the CCSS in ELA, which was entirely misconceived.
But that one, alone, should have been sufficient to keep this INSANE policy from ever seeing the light of day.
They are trying to hang on to CCSS that from their genesis have followed a flawed logic. I’m sorry but there is nothing worth salvaging; it is all tainted. I would argue against the imposition of high stakes standards as an additional requirement for graduation. Standards should be guidelines. Curriculum should not have to be molded to some rigid model. End of course exams (st the secondary level), among other teacher made assessments, should be an adequate measure of learning. By requiring that every student meet the same standards measured by high stakes testing rather than a professional teaching staff, we create a one size fits all system that serves no one well.
Not trying to be critical here, but Peter Greene (Curmudgucation) made an excellent point about the use of the phrase “one size fits all”
That standard advertising line means that a clothing item has been designed to fit a fairly wide variety of sizes and shapes.
CCSS does not fit a wide variety of learners. As Peter put it,
CCSS has been written and implemented so that, “All must fit one size”. And if they don’t, they (and their teachers) must be punished.
I thought he made an excellent point, as words do matter.
Given that they have prescribed a set of standards to be met by every student by showing proficiency on a test on this prescribed set of standards, I think it is fair to infer that the belief of those who have mandated these standards is that everyone should meet them, hence the phrase “one size fits all.” They believe that everyone should meet these standards to be college and career ready. Do we need to write “sarcasm alert” every time we use it? No, but perhaps you are right that we need to be aware that not everyone is going to catch the irony.
I see Peter’s point, but the truth is that the one size usually doesn’t actually “fit all,” even if it is supposed to, and I am not about to stop using this phrase to describe the CCSS because it resonates. It’s one of the few phrases coined by members of the CounterRheeformation that has actually caught on.
The deformers are masters of sloganeering. “Higher standards!” “Race to the top!” “The civil rights issue of our times!” “Data-driven decision making!” “Pearson,not Persons!” (OK, OK. I made that last one up. They are not using it. Yet.)
When we hit on a phrase that resonates, we should use it. And use it. And use it.
This phrase gets an essential point across clearly and memorably. It’s one that Joe and Marianne Sixpack will remember. Hell, even Sarah Palin could probably memorize it, if she studied really hard (or perhaps she could write it on her hand.)
I am not going to stop using the phrase, and I encourage others not to.
BTW, I would like to have a lot more people start referring to the C.C.C.C.C.C.R.A.P. tests.
That would be the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat College and Career Ready Assessment Program.
“BTW, I would like to have a lot more people start referring to the C.C.C.C.C.C.R.A.P. tests.”
I can remember CCRAP, but beyond that…
Turn that other one around “Persons not Pearson!” and we can use it. 😉
Not suggesting we abandon the “one size fits all” slogan. Just offering what I thought was an interesting take.
I couldn’t agree more that The Resistance must pound home central talking points to counter act the BS flowing from every orifice that Arne Duncan has.
These people would not have dared put their ignorant list of “standards” forward as a proposal for discussion and debate because for standard after standard, in domain after domain, people who actually knew what they were doing–researchers and scholars and curriculum developers and classroom practitioners–would have demonstrated the cluelessness of the CCSS “authors.”
No, the only way junk like this can get foisted on everyone is by top-down fiat.
But, hey, the masters at the CCSSO appointed Lord Coleman and Susan Pimentel, by divine right, absolute monarchs of English language arts instruction in the United States, and surely, as Hobbes argued in the Leviathan, monarchy is best. Surely, in Hobbes’s words, we all need to live under “a common power to keep [us] all in awe,” for as Queen Elizabeth I wrote in 1601, “The Royal Prerogative [is] not to be canvassed, nor disputed, nor examined, and [does] not even admit of any limitation.”
Well represented. You said a lot, there, Mercedes.
More of the propaganda campaign that we’ve been promised to protect up the “higher” [sorry . . . excuse me . . . I need to recover from my laughing fit] standards from those CRAZIES who don’t want our children to outgrit the Singaporeans.
The current “reform” movement has caused cheating, fraud, increased segregation, inappropriate instruction, low teacher morale and decreased school enjoyment for young children. Someone needs to be held accountable for that and I predict that they will be.
From Alan Jones
This is the central problem (tragedy) with treating education as a production/manufacturing industry instead of a coping organization (what organizational theorists call education). The goal of a production industry is to reduce variation in processes in order to manufacture a product that customers are certain will perform according to expectations/specifications. In a coping organization you are confronted with uncertain inputs, uncertain processes, and uncertain outcomes. Added to the inability to control inputs, processes, and outcomes, what parents are looking for in schools are instructional programs that increase variation in outcomes—further develop the unique abilities, talents, and interests of their children. For this reason, as Deming attempted to point out, but which our school leadership and political class still don’t understand, is that managing a production industry and managing a school require entirely different set of intellectual and organizational tools. Not understanding the fundamental differences between manufacturing and educating is the reason that all the intellectual and organizational tools—merit base, standards, standardized testing, curriculum alignment—that the Duncan’s, Rhee’s, are implementing will fail, and in fact will result in the dysfunctional outcomes Deming describes in his books—cheating, drop outs, early exiting of teachers, etc. I would add, that the set of intellectual and organizational tools that school leaders require to lead a coping organization—schools—are not taught at all in administrative certification programs.
I can’t find any CA teacher, student, or community voice represented in this article that claims that CCSS is “embraced” in California. “Embraced” by whom? The article has ample evidence of teacher, student, and community voices raising their objections in New York, but the CA embracers’ voices are absent.
May the gods save us from implementation of invariant “standards” this hackneyed, regressive, ignorantly formulated, unimaginative, prescientific, curriculum-and-pedagogy distorting, superficial, shallow, incomplete, and, often, random. These “standards” instantiate a lot of ignorant folk mythologies about the teaching of English. They were hacked together overnight by complete amateurs based on a quick mash-up of the lowest-common-denominator groupthink of the state “standards” that preceded them, and it shows.
It shows big time.
These new national “standards” are a national embarrassment.
I have a heuristic for figuring out whether someone knows the slightest thing about the teaching of English: I simply find out whether he or she supports the “implementation” of the puerile new “standards” in ELA, whether he or she actually thinks that that highly experienced educator and profound learning theorist Lord Coleman has the right to tell every teacher, curriculum coordinator, and curriculum designer in the country what outcomes should be measured and how those outcomes should be formulated.
If someone had handed David Coleman copies of Galen and of the 1858 Gray’s Anatomy and sent him to a cabin in the woods of Vermont to write new “standards” for the practice of medicine, a document very like this one would inevitably have been produced.
What utter cluelessness!!!! From national leaders!!!!!!
I am not ashamed to apply this heuristic to well-known “personalities” in the ed biz. In fact, when THOSE PEOPLE so betray their ignorance as to support “standards” this poorly drawn, they ESPECIALLY need to be called out for doing so. They should be hooted off the national stage by people who actually know what they are doing.
When may we start hooting?
Please do. It is long past time. If crap like this had been foisted on members of any other profession–doctors or lawyers, for example–the people who produced the garbage would have been drowned in a national chorus of derision.
Calling the puerile CCSS in ELA “ambitious goals for deeper learning ” is inexcusable. Really, someone who thinks that an accurate description of Lord Coleman’s bullet list should not be allowed anywhere near a policy-making position in U.S. education.
Well-said, Bob, on target as usual. There is no way to rescue or re-package CCSS or to rescue a career knee-deep in this garbage and dishonesty.
Thank you, Ira. I am growing really, really sick of the Vichy collaborators with the plutocrats who have foisted this puerile nonsense on us because they wanted a national list to tag their new products to.
Are the collaborators ignorant or venal or a bit of both? I cannot tell. But either way, I am sickened. Sick unto death.
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the ELA standards are total BS. The union collaborators are handsomely compensated for their collusion. It doesn’t stop because teachers are bullied by their political leaders. You may take Christie as a prime example. They are bullied by their administrators. How often have I been told that I do not know what I am talking about in recent years by people who know far less than I? They are bullied by the media. I can barely make it through a television news broadcast without getting upset about a story. Teachers are terrified of losing their livelihoods and their homes.
That the teachers’ unions should have been made over by their leaders into propaganda ministries for the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth is the hardest blow. Et tu?
Terrified. Teachers are terrified of losing their jobs if they dare say a word. And in this situation THEIR LEADERS are working for those implementing the reign of terror and error.
Moi? I am tired of my anger. I am tired of the unending stress. I am frustrated by the time, money and effort I have expended to earn my credentials and the emotional outpouring necessary for teaching. I have exhausted myself in trying to figure out viable options for a late stage career change. I feel sorriest for the children who will be taught by a revolving door of teachers and will thereby have even fewer adult constants in their lives. As much as they make our lives difficult, they crave our involvement.
NY. I sense from your post that you understand how destructive to one’s own health anger is. We must not be angry. But we must be firm and fearless, for the children. I love your posts, BTW. Thank you for your years of service for the children.
Teachers plant seeds. Most of these blossom, for good or ill, long, long after the teacher and student have parted. That’s one of the difficult parts of the job. It’s difficult to remember that and to hold onto it, but it’s a deep truth. Kids will act all tough and teflon, but that one word, said in kindness and belief in the child, will grow and be remembered and clung to in a time of need.
But people are afraid to say what they think of the amateurish CCSS in ELA. I hear this again and again and again. People voice their utter disgust that anyone would take this junk seriously to me “in private,” and then they keep their mouths shut in public because they are AFRAID, because a culture of fear has been created all across this country. If I don’t go with the program, if I dare object to HAVING MY PROFESSION RUINED BY AMATEURS, I will lose my job or not get the consulting gig or lose that contract or not be hired.
I have now had maybe fifty such conversations with editors at publishing houses, teachers, school administrators, professional education consultants, and others in K-12 education. They read crap like this piece, they hear people talk about these new “higher” standards, and they groan and sigh and wonder how long it will take until this, too, passes.
“fifty”
Make that hundreds if not thousands over the last 15 or so years since I first heard “data driven decision making” on a “professional development” day. (It’s so much fun and such a learning experience being professionally developed!!). GAGAers one and almost all. May the rest in hell for all the harm they have caused to students with implementing these educational malpractices.
I’m reporting generally about what colleagues say to me in private. Many are highly placed folks who are scared to death to say in public anything negative about the “standards” because of the climate of fear that has been created. They know that opposing the CCSS Thought Police in the slightest way can be very damaging to their careers.
Who will hold presidents, the US Department of Corporate Education, governors and legislators accountable for the harmful federal policies pushed down to the local level?
Our national leaders seem unable (or unwilling) to follow “The First Rule of Holes”
Hence, they will never lead us out of this one.
Bob, you are putting way too much time and energy into commenting. I was like you (4 years ago) an angry and disillusioned teacher, until I figured out the truth. You can have 10,000 conversations.. who cares? Unless you are talking to billionaires, you are wasting your breath.
What we feel is what people must of felt living under the Nazis or in the Soviet Union. You don’t agree with things that are happening, but you are utterly powerless to change anything. Remember Nazi Germany only “changed” because 80% of the world was fighting all-out against it for years… Internally, it would have never have changed. Systems rarely change from within. We will all be dead a long time before anything resembles the past again. Voltaire said, “tend to your own garden.” I also recommend gardening (literally), cooking, or bird watching and Netflix. Life is short. History is cyclical!
There are millions of kids lives at stake. Their educations are being stolen from them. A great deal of damage is being done. I feel that it is my duty to do something. I am a Buddhist. I know how to go to that place beyond this busi-ness. But when others are silent, I must speak because of those kids and the harm that is being done to them.
cx: kids’ lives
And what I am feeling about all this is not anger. It is sadness.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do noting” – Edmund Burke
nothing
“History is cyclical!”
NO! History isn’t cyclical, if anything it is cynical.
YES! Life is too short to put up with these educational malpractices that harm many children.
REFUSE TO GAGA!!!!
Bob – Keep commenting – I always read your comments. Someone has to speak up with your kind of passion and deep thinking – we need more of you – not less – out there fighting the good fight.
Tried to put this on Huffington Post, not sure it got there.
“Implementing the standards well will not be accomplished by targets and sanctions.”
Neither of these public figures seem to grasp this fact: The standards are the problem. We are drowning in 1, 620 so-called Common Core State Standards” in only two subjects, math and reading. We have new standards in many other subjects, including the sciences, social studies, the arts, computer technology, financial literacy, and you name it.
At best, standards are guidelines for thinking coherently about what is worth knowing and why, and for whom, when, and who says so.
Federal policies and self-appointed purveyors of the so-called common core standards have set up the conditions that require teachers and students to meet them on time, and verbatim. That means don’t dare remove or try to improve any of these, they are perfect as is.
These standards were written by hired hands of private foundations who are not obliged to live with the consequences, and who knew nothing about learning in childhood. They have hyped the idea that today’s kindergardeners will be college and career-ready thirteen years hence, in 2027. Not even the US Department of Labor makes such leaps through thin air. A typical US worker has had eleven jobs by age 44. Labor markets projections are revised every three years.
The entire policy structure is wrong and counter-productive. There can be no doubt about this.
The standards dubbed common core must be eliminated from any new vision. Standardized education is wrong for kids, teachers, parents, and this nation.
Laura, your voice is water in this desert. Thank you.
Amen.
Yawn!! Randi has been “partnering” with people she ignored in the first place and I hear from pretty good sources she is pissing a lot of people who fought these Reforms from the very beginning off.
I hold out hope that she will come around, that she will, for example, talk to people who actually know something about language acquisition or teaching literature and writing or vocabulary or anything else treated in these “standards” and will come to understand just how childish and uninformed these “higher standards” are
Your hope is misplaced. Randi has little interest in those types of people you have described. Her view of union activism is to forge connections with the rich and the powerful. We need to be seeking alternatives to her leadership.
Bob:
Don’t let anyone stop you from speaking the truth. Diane has given us this platform and we must follow her example. We need passionate AND educated people such as yourself to run for office whether a union position or a government one. I think we would really have a chance if we banded together and supported a grassroots campaign. Since both sides of the aisle have deserted us ( that happened when corporations became “people”) we need to run bipartisan third party (how about the Party of Common $ense”)? I have never funded any public candidate, but I would put $$ toward a cause that would ultimately save our children. There are many educated posters on this blog. Social Media could be a cheap way to rally. Our unions should be buying billboards, putting out flyers, demonstrating at school board meetings. Parents should picket, etc. etc. Don’t stop Bob.
Randi Weingarten’s tenure as a union leader has been an utter catastrophe for teachers and students alike, starting in NYC and then expanding to the national stage. It has been characterized by enthusiastic collaboration with the enemies of public education and teachers, every step of the way.
Under her mis-leadership, we have endured attacks on tenure, seniority and working conditions. We have had to listen to her insipidly speak in our names as she accepts the premises and policies of the so-called reformers time and again – charter schools, high stakes tests, RttP, Common Core, VAM, etc. – while also watching her accept money from the man who is funding so much of our misery. She showed unmitigated contempt for the people she claims to represent by inviting that man to address the AFT convention as keynote speaker, when she should have been using that opportunity to mobilize teachers to counteract his destructive billions.
The woman is at best a captive of the so-called reformers, disingenuously helicoptering in for an occasional photo opportunity to misdirect teacher’s attention from her continuing betrayals.
So, now we have a “major statement” from her, as she attempts to use Linda Darling Hammond as a fig leaf to cover her disgraceful legacy.
Yeah, sure, Randi, whatever you say…
What? Weingarten and Hammonds-Darling calling for more/better of the same educational malpractices that start with educational standards??? NSS!!
“Implementing the standards well will not be accomplished by targets and sanctions. It will require more adequate and equitable resources and greater investments in professional capacity, especially for currently underfunded schools that serve the highest-need students.”
Yep let’s keep on doing the wrong thing righter, more money to implement “standards”, yep, yep, yep.
Doing the Wrong Thing Righter
The proliferation of educational assessments, evaluations and canned programs belongs in the category of what systems theorist Russ Ackoff describes as “doing the wrong thing righter. The righter we do the wrong thing,” he explains, “the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right.”
Our current neglect of instructional issues are the result of assessment policies that waste resources to do the wrong things, e.g., educational standards and standardized testing, right. Instructional central planning and student control doesn’t – can’t – work. But, that never stops people trying.
The result is that each effort to control the uncontrollable does further damage, provoking more efforts to get things in order. So the function of management/administration becomes control rather than creation of resources. When Peter Drucker lamented that so much of management consists in making it difficult for people to work, he meant it literally. Inherent in obsessive command and control is the assumption that human beings can’t be trusted on their own to do what’s needed. Hierarchy and tight supervision are required to tell them what to do. So, fear-driven, hierarchical organizations turn people into untrustworthy opportunists. Doing the right thing instructionally requires less centralized assessment, less emphasis on evaluation and less fussy interference, not more. The way to improve controls is to eliminate most and reduce all.
Former Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan (Viet Nam) did when he noted in Sir! No Sir! that:
“I was doing it right but I wasn’t doing right.”
And from one of America’s premier writers:
“The mass of men [and women] serves the state [education powers that be] thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, [administrators and teachers], etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.”- Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862], American author and philosopher
Darling-Hammond
I find interesting the comment that what we need is:
” a support-and-improve model. A new approach should ensure that students get what they really need: 1) curriculum, teaching, and assessment focused on meaningful learning, 2) adequate resources that are spent wisely, and 3) professional capacity, so that teachers and school leaders develop the knowledge and skills they need to teach much more challenging content in much more effective ways.”
Funny how things don’t change, or history repeats itself – depends on your perspective. That is exactly the model I experienced as a new, young science teacher in a suburban high school in Connecticut – in 1972!
“California as an example of how to do it right”
Oh, California is doing education right????
Calling all California teachers! Is California “doing education right”??
Me thinks not!
I’m afraid that both Linda and Randi lost all credibility with me long ago. When they willingly subject themselves to the constant humiliation of onerous “walkthroughs” and evaluations by outsiders who are no longer practitioners with long checklists of ridiculous standards that can never be met by real human teachers teaching real human students and publicly state that they are willing to lose their jobs if they don’t make the grade then I will listen to what they have to say.
And that goes for professors, researchers, superintendents, principals, reading and math coaches, district personnel, and anyone else in the field of education. Your punitive and degrading evaluation systems do not ensure accountability because you yourselves are not held to the same standards yet you make all the decisions and you are not subject to the same kind of panopticon observation and you feel no sword of Damocles hanging over your heads because of a few miscreant children who choose not to take learning or testing seriously.
You have zero credibility in telling us what to do and how to do it. You should be listening to us and taking notes yourselves.
When I see a list of administrators and other reformers names published in a newspaper with VAM ratings and see them facing being fired and losing their credentials and careers then I will take their stupid advice seriously. Until then, get lost.
Amen! I’ve wished this for a long time. EVERY administrator should have to teach a class every few years. And I don’t mean a guest lecture or subbing for one day–I mean teaching a class from start to finish, including evaluations. Then, come back to me and tell me everything I’m doing “wrong.”
Don’t dis all administrators. I taught for 20+ years before I became an administrator, so I think I’m a pretty good judge of teaching. My teachers respect me for exactly that reason. I do teach or co-teach classes, and I model instruction for new teachers. Most of my veteran teachers really don’t need evaluating. They do an excellent job day in and day out. New teachers need a lot of support, and I put a significant amount of my energy there. If your administrator tells you that you are doing something “wrong,” that person needs lessons in coaching, mentoring, and leadership.
Chris, I agree. In my observations of teachers who move into administrative or “coaching” positions, it is about three years later that they have lost perspective of the day-to-day-everyday classroom setting. I’m not saying they are not or cannot provide support, but their “advice” for improving the teaching and learning environment provides very little help beyond catch-phrases and cliches. The same is true for the “experts” who ride the circuit selling their wares that worked for them one time in one place that one year.
Thanks Ric and ToW. The biggest offenders are those who left the classroom before nCLB and RTTT telling us how to do it when they’ve never done it themselves. I taught back then and it was an entirely different world. Their expertise from that era doesn’t pertain to the current era.
My biggest gripe,is th district personnel who watch a few YouTube videos and read a few websites randomly and suddenly they are Common Core experts. No, you are not. I’ve taught the CCSS for 2 years now in an actual classroom. Stop insulting my intelligence by pretending you know more than I do if you are out of the classroom. You don’t.
Suregeons don’t take direction from those who left medicine. Chefs don’t take direction from people who stopped cooking years ago. Software designers don’t take direction from people who quit using computers years ago. Why do teqchers put up with this?
It is time for a new model indeed. Get rid of the bloated out of classroom positions. Eliminate the whole idea of a principal and have a business manager, a behavioral dean, and a plant manager. Let the teachers be experts on teaching and curriculum like we should be. We already mentor newcomers, deal with all the paperwork and the majority of discipline. The bureaucracy has become far too top heavy with non-practitioners who claim far too much false expertise and importance.
We need to take our profession back and the time is ripe to do so now in all this reformy upheaval.
Hear hear – wasted time, wasted money.
Darling Hammond? When did she sell out to the edudeformers? Perhaps from the severe concussion she got after being thrown under the bus by the Obomber.
Any educational practice based on educational standards and standardized testing is completely INVALID as proven by Noel Wilson and should be considered “malpractice”. To understand why the myriad epistemological and ontological errors render the whole process “vain and illusory” read his “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
So discouraging, not one aspect of this CCNS is worth salvaging. We need real leadership, benefit of the doubt was extended far too long. My kids’ and their future kids education depends on it.
Reblogged this on Centerville United for Responsible Education and commented:
The problem with CC is that it is backwards planning for the Ka-ching of profits. If “they” get one curriculum nationwide, perhaps eventually worldwide, “they” cash in. Create the backend test, then force with sanctions teaching to the test. Everything else, creativity, individuality, flies out the window. Best practices fly out the window. “They” are in cahoots. The politicians who accept the $ donations that back their campaigns, then implement these flawed and already unproven to work “reforms” and all of their financiers should have a class action lawsuit brought against them by the parents and students. Sorta a reverse of what students first is doing to sue for “good” teachers–cuz we all know those TFA gems are the best at what they do, right? Puke. Just writing that sentence sickens me.
Time for a lawsuit? Sue the bastards?
I once thought earning a license to teach meant something. In the near future teachers may need to invest in malpractice insurance.
“. . . may need to invest in malpractice insurance.”
Unfortunately, the vast majority of teachers are already “malpracticing” by instituting these nefarious CCSS and standardized testing malpractices. All who do should be sued for malpractice.
By the way one way the NEA and UFT market themselves is to include “malpractice insurance” with the membership. I wouldn’t buy any as lawyers don’t go after the pockets with holes in them, they go after the deep pockets, and as far as they’re concerned not having insurance is a huge hole.
New policy sounds a lot like the old policy. I don’t see anything in that list that the current “status quo” policies don’t fit into.
“so that teachers and school leaders develop the knowledge and skills they need to teach much more challenging content in much more effective ways.”
What does this even mean? These are professional teachers, that have already gone to college and continually do professional development. Why does the instruction on how to teach challenging material need to come from some other entity above? Don’t they already know how to teach challenging material?
The problem is that all of the three points in this policy hinge on some larger entity that is far removed from the schools is in charge and calling all the plays, and is going to profide professional educators with their directive.
I see this all as a major red flag. And I don’t really trust Weingarten or Darling-Hammond, I don’t know who they are advocates for, but they are not my advocates.
It’s interesting that when people write PR pieces for the new “standards,” the good things that they say about those “standards” always take this sort of VERY vague form:
The standards encourage teaching “much more challenging content in much more effective ways.”
Propagandists for the CCSS NEVER base their support for the “standards” on what the particular, enumerated items in the CCSS bullet list actually say, and they COULD NOT DO SO because the particular enumerated are indefensible. In fact, one reads these defenses of the “standards” and wonders whether those the “standards” ever actually read them or simply listened to some speech about them by, say, Bill Gates.
Defenders of these “standards” always base their defenses on a few generalities. The “standards” are “new.” They are “higher.” They were prepared by “teachers.” They call for “more challenging content.” They call for teaching “in much more effective ways.”
All of that–the ENTIRE BASIS FOR SUPPORT FOR THE “STANDARDS”–is uncritical acceptance of CLAIMS made for the “standards.”
And if one investigates those claims at all closely, one finds that each claim is either
a. false (that is, what is said of the “standards” is not true of them)
or
b. misleading in a particular way (the claim is a truism reflecting standard practices that have always been standard practices that has been put forward as some sort of revolutionary new idea).
Among the false claims for the new “standards” is that
they do not require particular curricula and pedagogy. They are full of curricular and pedagogical entailments, and educational publishers are treating them as a de facto curriculum outline. If the “standards” say that 8th graders will learn how to identify verbals and explain their functions, that is both several curriculum items AND a particular pedagogical approach (explicit instruction in terminology for describing syntactic forms).
Among the misleading claims for the new “standards” are that
a. as a result of these “standards,” students will read more substantive material more closely and so learn more. The arrogance and presumption of this claim are both breathtaking. Do these people actually believe that all across America, English teachers always insisted on having their students read really simple, insipid, stupid texts and not pay much attention to them until David Coleman came along to tell them how to do their jobs? Well, Coleman seems to think so. Shockingly, Weingarten and Darling-Hammond seem to think so, too.
b. as a result of these “standards,” more effective pedagogical practices will be employed (which contradicts the other claim that the standards do not tell people how to teach, btw). Consider the “close reading” emphasis of the CCSS. This emphasis typically ends up being translated into practices that are extraordinarily damaging. Texts are chosen by state departments or districts based solely on the Lexile levels of those texts and someone’s notion that those texts are “classic”; teachers are, insanely, told not to provide any context for the selections in the bizarre belief that understanding the context will interfere with close reading; actual engagement with what texts say is replaced by “close reading” activities based on the bullet list of standards items–activities that emphasize minor formal aspects of parts of texts and so narrow, distort, and trivialize the instruction. I have now seen this sort of thing in about forty new Common [sic] Core [sic] products.
I have no problem with people putting forth a general guideline that kids should read substantive texts and do so carefully. at’s like saying doctors should attempt to heal the sick. Oh seers of the obvious!!!! But the underlying assumption on which that presumptuous directive is made–that teachers and curriculum developers weren’t doing that in the past–is appalling. It shows the ignorance and arrogance of the people who hacked this puerile list together and who defend it without getting into any of the specifics like, for this particular part of this particular standard, why, year after year, given the thousands of substantive topics related to figurative language that one might treat with students, we are to concentrate, instead, on having students examine how figurative language affects the mood and tone of selections.
The particular “standards” is indefensible, and that’s why the defenders of these “standards” don’t talk about specifics but simply parrot the vague, general PR created by the plutocrats’ windup toys at the NGA and CCSSO.
sorry about the typos in that post. my keyboard is being a bit balky right now. probably needs a new battery.
In my upcoming book, I will have ideas to deal with the problem of students with too many strikes. Will keep y’all posted
“There are some very good ideas in their statement. I would add my two cents: when some children and families live in such desperate circumstance, not even the best standards, curriculum, assessments, and professional development will be enough to create equality of opportunity. Some kids have too many strikes against them, and that is a societal failure.”
You definitely nailed that one on the head, Diane. I’ve worked with many kids who would fall in that category. It requires an entire different skill set and curriculum if you really want to teach students anything that’s meaningful enough to really catch their attention and stay with them in years to come.
if I might add my two cents regarding this excerpt from the statement:
“…3) professional capacity, so that teachers and school leaders develop the knowledge and skills they need to teach much more challenging content in much more effective ways.”
Randi and Linda: with all due respect, what is this “…much more challenging content in much more effective ways.” of which you speak? Are you saying that I haven’t challenged my students in extremely effective (and creative) ways? If so, I will say that you are wrong. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. And I’ll also say that you’re wrong in the case of the majority of my colleagues, as well. Frankly; we’re beyond just “tired” of hearing about how much we need to improve, day in and day out, from sources outside the classroom.
The statement could easily be construed as buying into the concept that we, as a nation of educators, are failing our students. A concept that’s based on our standings on the PISA and our failures at achieving the “lofty heights” of the CCSS and all the tests that are associated with them. Our inability to make all of our kids “college and career ready” in an economic climate that offers so little to so many of our “pampered” graduates. So much of this reform speak has been and will continue to be debunked as being flawed in design and implementation, based on rigged and meaningless statistics.
Are there schools and teachers that need to improve? Definitely. But don’t make this into the blanket national emergency that Klein and Rhee declared in DC. Put a bandage where it belongs but please don’t put a full body cast on an otherwise healthy patient.
but we can slow the process for them, take them from where they are, one step at a time. My new book details this in dot coms soon
I am feeling somewhat guilty abut my posts in this thread, not for my comments about the CC$$ in ELA, which I stand behind fully, but for not acknowledging that this piece by Ms. Weingarten and Ms. Darling-Hammond represents a positive step in the national discourse over these crummy standards and the crummy tests associated with them.
IF the teeth were removed from the ridiculous, invalid, curriculum-and-pedagogy distorting assessments, then we could have a real national discussion of the putative “standards” without people fearing that if they say the slightest thing negative about those standards, they will be fired or not hired or not given some contract.
It is certainly the case that the current extrinsic punishment and reward model instantiated in the testing and evaluation regime is extraordinarily counterproductive. However, arguing that we need to end that regime so that these new “standards” can do some sort of magic is naive and uninformed at best.
We need to end the testing. No question about that. In time, that will certainly happen, for the tests are awful, and this will become quite clear to everyone soon.
But then we need to have the debate and discussion of these putative standards that did not happen before they were forced upon most of kids, parents, teachers, administrators, and curriculum developers of the United States.
I look forward to that debate.
I beg to disagree Bob. Standards and testing are a package deal. As you have written many times, the standards are a bullet list for the testing. Throw out the baby with the bath water. There is nothing to be appauded here.
Bob Shepherd & NJ Teacher: with all due respect, yes, CCSS and high-stakes standardized testing are a package deal. “You can’t have one without the other” as the old Sammy Cahn song goes.
Don’t trust me. Let’s go to a genuine insider of the education establishment, Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute. He is an unimpeachably expert witness for the ‘Sammy Cahn’ interpretation:
[start quote]
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end quote]
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
Let me conclude by adding that I don’t think we are in real disagreement so much as focusing on different facets of the same thing.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
Thanks for your two cents KrazyTA.
yes you can have one without the other, after the other is weakened. My new book will detail this. Brainstorming the Common Core, Salvaging the fiasco of reform in about 2 months
There is nothing whatsoever positive about this “step”, and we are long past these mealy-mouthed platitudes. Should our political and social progress in exposing the “old accountability” be washed away by the promise of a newer, kinder corporate heel?
What part of “new accountability” don’t you understand, Bob?
My god, I have argued on this blog EVERY DAY for two years that the standards and the testing are one ugly package. I did not say anything different here. I said that I consider it a positive step that these two are questioning the testing. I also said that we need to end the testing. And I said that when that is done, we need to have a discussion of these puerile “standards.”
They didn’t “question the testing”. They ENDORSED “accountability”.
I see your point, chemtchr.
I would dearly love to see these “leaders” held accountable for Vichy collaboration with these deforms.
Duane–I have to say, you are one of my favorite commenters on this blog, as I feel your words call for action, which we must have. As history has shown us, we absolutely CANNOT “ride it out” or “wait for it to blow over.” I am here today because my grandparents were wise enough to get the hell out of Russia during the pograms, so weren’t around to be part of “the final solution.” Of course, those who stuck around “waiting for it to blow over,” thinking the Nazi movement would all come to naught perished, or barely escaped. The very minds & beings of our children are being destroyed, and there is no time to waste. I know public school employees are, as some of you have put it, “terrified.” Exactly what THEY (again, think ALEC as the perpetrator of ALL of this) want you to be. I cannot condemn all GAGAs–only those who might truly be ignorant, thinking all is well, because their administrators tell them so, & they do not have the wherewithal to think outside the box, nor to read and discourse on blogs such as Diane’s. While you cannot, necessarily, speak up, you CAN turn to others who can–without fear of retribution–help. Contact your retired teachers’ organizations. Contact retired teachers. Enjoin us in fighting back. We can urge parents to opt their children out of testing, & pass them the instructions for so doing. We can make phone calls. We can show up at rallies. We can speak truth to power…without fear of being fired. Many of us being children of the turbulent ’60s know how to organize, not agonize. As my handle indicates–yes, we have retired, but we miss the kids (& the parents, & the communities, & our colleagues). We owe it to you all to be of service, & you owe it to yourselves, your own families, your students, parents, communities & the very survival of public education to reach out now & get this party started. Resist, fight back, push back, in every village, town, city & state. Start locally & the impact will be felt across America. We CAN do it…together, for united we stand. Don’t stop the dialogue, but do start the DOING.
think deeper and see what you come up with. My new book coming soon: Brainstorming Common Core, Salvaging the Fiasco of Reform You wont recognize it after i finish with it
How poignant your comments. How true. Victory Day will come for me when I retire and become the DOE’s biggest thorn. It will be my privilege to fight for education. Where do we “in the trenches” go to find our retired educators?
In 1880, the Second International Congress for the Education of the Deaf met in Milan, Italy. Many “education experts” from around the world attended. There, they voted to BAN the use of sign language in the education of deaf persons.
The decision was a terrible tragedy for the deaf community. Today, it is universally understood what a tragedy that decision was. Today, it is universally understood that the decision was based in ignorance and prejudice. Today, it is universally understood that the decision had profoundly negative effects on the lives of many generations of deaf kids.
And even at the time when the decision was made, there was plenty of scientific evidence that it was wrong, but the “renowned education experts” at the Milan conference were clueless about the relevant science. They insisted that their “higher” approach–teaching lip reading–was superior.
Well, the same sort of horror is happening, right now, with the CCSS in ELA. The new “standards” are incredibly backward and prescientific. They instantiate many, many folk mythologies about the teaching and learning of grammar, vocabulary, thinking, reading, and writing. They will set back the English language arts by DECADES. They will do a LOT of damage.
And yet we have education “leaders” trumpeting this crap, just like the education “leaders” who tried to kill sign and did so because they were profoundly ignorant, because they did not understand that sign is a unique, authentic, robust language in itself, like any other language–like French or English or Swahili or Hindi or Greek, and not simply a means for transcribing other languages.
It’s entirely understandable when someone like David Coleman trumpets the “new, higher standards.” He has no experience and no education in the relevant disciplines. And he hasn’t even a clue how much he doesn’t know.
But when our education “leaders” try to force these “standards” on us, that’s another matter altogether. They should know better. That they do not is SHOCKING.
Shame on them.
Shame on them for not learning more about the disciplines in which they practice.
Shame on them for the deep, irreparable damage that they are doing and will do over the coming years to millions of kids.
“Three bling for the educrats under the sky,
Seven for the edubullies who on teachers throw stones,
Nine for mere teachers doomed to die,
One for the Snark Lord on his dark throne
In the Centres of EduExcellence where the shadows lie.
One BlingRing to rule them all, One BlingRing to find them,
One BlingRing to bring them and in the darkness bind them
In the Board Room of Gates where the shadows lie.”
–Song from “The Lord of the Blingring,” book DCLXVI of the Blingringelungenlied (collected by KrazyTA)
For more on classic Rheeformish songs and spells, see “Prosody of Financial Statements and Other Rheeformish Poetry” in “Grimoires and Other Rheeformish Literature,” Appendix 10 of the Rheeformish Lexicon.
What these people fail to bring to light is that the “standards” (read: CCSS) is a long term investment by reformist elements. There is nothing new in their statements. I found them repetitive and disingenuous, almost as if they were regurgitating the same old lines of those who continue to support the CCSSI. If they are clinging to CCSS, then they are culpable of supporting the disenfranchisement of public schools and the further marginalization of people and communities, as Diane Ravitch reminds in the above article.
I have a new blog post responding to this and I agree wholeheartedly with Bob Shepard: http://alexandramiletta.blogspot.com/2014/05/when-harder-is-not-better-problems-with.html
As usual, Diane, your addition to the general statement cuts through the rhetoric and unveils the truth of poverty.
Dr. Ravitch, I agree with you that there are far too many children with extreme needs that are reflect societal problems, not ineffective schools. I am an educator. I chose not be a social worker. However, I do believe that I can work with social workers to help the children I serve to succeed. Based on the constructs of Maslow, I think that the recommendations for accountability that are so spot on by the two authors you discuss will not have meaningful results until the basic life needs of the children have been satisfied. Without requiring teachers to be social workers, we can coordinate social services through schools so that children are physically and emotionally ready to explore their natural trajectory for intellectual development. The Healthy Start Program that California had sponsored for so many years, and the Even Start Program sponsored by the USDOE, are excellent examples of these coordinated efforts so the more realistic accountability system can be implemented.
Certainly doing a frontal attack on the social problems of this country is essential. However, these problems won’t be solved overnight. Until they are, we must design a system of education that serves all kids, taking them from where they are, with failure as a positive learning experience, and altering time frames to allow us to wait for those who are behind, rather than battering them into submission.
Empowering kids to chase their dreams will effect every child in a positive way. There is way to much to write about so I am just finishing my new book that gives details how to accomplish this formidable tast.
Brainstorming Common Core: Salvaging the Fiasco of Reform should be available in two to three months. Check http://www.wholechildreform.co every once in a while for the date.
It is everyones duty right now, to get ideas on the table to support a new way of doing things that allows teachers to take back their profession and kids to reach for their dreams. Randi and Linda are doing that right now. But this is only the beginning of the conversation. There is much to talk about